Convert CSV to JSON using PHP

Question

I am trying to convert CSV file to JSON using PHP.

Here is my code

<?php 

date_default_timezone_set('UTC');
$today = date("n_j"); // Today is 1/23/2015 -> $today = 1_23

$file_name = $today.'.CSV'; // My file name is 1_23.csv
$file_path = 'C:\\Users\\bheng\\Desktop\\qb\\'.$file_name;
$file_handle = fopen($file_path, "r");

$result = array();

if ($file_handle !== FALSE) {

    $column_headers = fgetcsv($file_handle); 
    foreach($column_headers as $header) {
            $result[$header] = array();

    }
    while (($data = fgetcsv($file_handle)) !== FALSE) {
        $i = 0;
        foreach($result as &$column) {
                $column[] = $data[$i++];
        }
    }
    fclose($file_handle);
}

// print_r($result); // I see all data(s) except the header

$json = json_encode($result);
echo $json;

?>

print_r($result); // I see all data(s)

Then I json_encode($result); and tried to display it, but nothing is displaying on the screen at all. All I see is the blank screen, and 0 error message.

Am I doing anything wrong ? Can someone help me ?

Added Result of print_r($result);

Array (
    [Inventory] => Array (
        [0] => bs-0468R(20ug)
        [1] => bs-1338R(1ml)
        [2] => bs-1557G(no bsa)
        [3] => bs-3295R(no BSA)
        [4] => bs-0730R-Cy5"
        [5] => bs-3889R-PE-Cy7"
        [6] => 11033R
        [7] => 1554R-A647
        [8] => 4667
        [9] => ABIN731018
        [10] => Anti-DBNL protein 

        .... more .... 

Answer 1

function csvToArray(string $path): array
{
    $fileResource = fopen($path, "r");
    $headers = fgetcsv($fileResource);
    $items = [];

    while (!feof($fileResource)) {
        $row = fgetcsv($fileResource);
        if (!$row) break;
        $items[] = array_combine($headers, $row);
    }

    return $items;
}

Answer 2

Something that i've made for myself and may be useful for others :) This will convert CSV into JSON array with objects (key => value pair).

function csv2json($a, $e = true) {
    $b = ["\r\n","\r","\n",];
    foreach ($b as $c => $d) {
        $a = explode($d, $a);
        $a = isset($b[$c + 1]) ? implode($b[$c + 1], $a) : implode(PHP_EOL, $a);
    }
    // Convert to CSV
    $a = array_map("str_getcsv", explode(PHP_EOL, $a));
    // Get the first part of the array as the keys
    $a = [
        "keys" => array_shift($a),
        "rows" => $a,
        "row"  => null,
    ];
    // Define JSON
    $b = [];
    foreach ($a["rows"] as $a["row"]) {
        $a["row"] = [ "csv" => $a["row"], "json" => (object)[], ];
        for ($c = 0; $c < count($a["row"]["csv"]); $c++) {
            $a["row"]["csv"][$c] = [@json_decode($a["row"]["csv"][$c]),$a["row"]["csv"][$c]];
            // Switch from string to booleans, numbers and others
            $a["row"]["csv"][$c] = isset($a["row"]["csv"][$c][0]) ? $a["row"]["csv"][$c][0] : $a["row"]["csv"][$c][1];
            // Push it back
            $a["row"]["json"]->{$a["keys"][$c]} = $a["row"]["csv"][$c];
        }
        $a["row"] = $a["row"]["json"];
        $b[] = $a["row"];
        unset($a["row"]);
    }
    // $e will be "return"
    $e = $e ? json_encode($b) : $b;
    // Unset useless variables
    unset($a, $b, $c, $d);
    return $e;
}

How to use?

If you want to return the JSON as a string, Leave it as default. If you want to return the JSON as an object / array, set the second parameter to false. Examples:

$csv = "name,age,gender
John Doe,35,male
Jane Doe,32,female";
echo csv2json($csv, true); // Or without the second parameter, just csv2json($csv)

The example above (^) will return a JSON stringified, Like this:

[{"name":"John Doe","age":35,"gender":"male"},{"name":"Jane Doe","age":32,"gender":"female"}]

and the example below:

var_dump(csv2json($csv, false));

will return a JSON array with these objects:

array(2) {
  [0]=>
  object(stdClass)#1 (3) {
    ["name"]=>
    string(8) "John Doe"
    ["age"]=>
    int(35)
    ["gender"]=>
    string(4) "male"
  }
  [1]=>
  object(stdClass)#2 (3) {
    ["name"]=>
    string(8) "Jane Doe"
    ["age"]=>
    int(32)
    ["gender"]=>
    string(6) "female"
  }
}

Answer 3

public function CsvToJson($fileContent){
    //Convert CSV To Json and Return
    $all_rows = array();
    $newhead =array();
    //Extract csv data to array on \n
    $array = explode("\n",$fileContent);
    //Extract csv header to array on 0 Index
    $header = explode(",",$array[0]);
    //Remove Header Row From Main Data Array
    array_shift($array);
    //Extract All Arrays To Saperate Orders
    foreach($array as $arr){
       $sliced = explode(",",$arr);
       array_push($all_rows,$sliced); 
    }
    //Extract All Orders Element To Saperate Array Item
    foreach($all_rows as $row){
       $sliced = explode(",",$arr);
       array_push($all_rows,$sliced); 
    }
    //Remove \r From Header Elements
    foreach($header as $key=>$value){
       $sliced = str_replace ("\r", "", $value);
       array_push($newhead,$sliced); 
    }

    //COMBINE Header as KEY And Row Element As Value
    $arrrr = array();
    foreach($all_rows as $row) {
        //Remove Last Element of ROW if it is \r (Break given in css file for next row)
        $count= count($row);
        if ($row[$count-1] == "\r") {
           array_splice($row, count($row) - 1, 1);
        }
        //CHECK IF HADER COUNT == ROW COUNT
        if (count($header) == count($row)) {
            array_push($arrrr,array_combine($newhead,$row));
        }
        
    } 
    //CONVERT ARRAY TO JSON
    $json = json_encode($arrrr);
    //Remove backslasesh from json key and and value to remove \r
    $clean = stripslashes($json);
    //CONVERT ARRAY TO JSON AGAIN FOR EXPORT
    $jsonagain = json_encode($clean);
    return $jsonagain;
}

Answer 4

This issue is pretty old by now, but hoping this helps someone, as it seemed like the simplest example I found, and I know this is a pretty common thing devs might need to do as a beginner, and lots of answers gloss over the magic.

$file = storage_path('app/public/waitlist_users_test.csv'); //--> laravel helper, but you can use any path here

function csv_to_json($file)
  {
    // file() loads each row as an array value, then array map uses the 'str_getcsv' callback to 
      $csv = array_map('str_getcsv', file($file)); 

    //  array_walk - "walks" through each item of the array and applies the call back function. the & in "&row" means that alterations to $row actually change the original $csv array, rather than treating it as immutable (*sort of immutable...)
      array_walk($csv, function(&$row) use ($csv) {
     
        // array_combine takes the header row ($csv[0]) and uses it as array keys for each column in the row
        $row = array_combine($csv[0], $row); 
      });
      
    array_shift($csv); # removes now very redundant column header --> contains {'col_1':'col_1', 'col_2':'col_2'...}
    $json = json_encode($csv);

    return $json;
  }

There's a lot of magic going on with these functions that accept callback functions, that didn't seem to be explained thoroughly above. I'm self taught and have been programming for years, and find that it's often just glossed over without detailing how callbacks work, so I'll dive in just a little bit for the array_map('str_getcsv', file($file)) function - if you pass a function you've written, or inbuilt php function name as a string, it will take the value of whatever (in this case - array) element is being evaluated by the calling function (in this case array_map), and pass that to the callback function without the need to explicitly pass in a variable - super helpful once you get the hang of it, but I find it's not explained thoroughly very often which leaves beginners to not understand why it works, just that it works.

I've linked most of these above, but here's a little more information: str-getcsv do? Array Walk Array Map Callables/Callbacks

as @MoonCactus noted, the file() function only loads 1 row at a time which helps save on memory usage for large .csv files.

Also, some other posts reference using explode - why not use explode() instead of str_getcsv() to parse rows? Because explode() would not treat possible enclosured parts of string or escaped characters correctly.

Hope somebody finds this helpful!

Answer 5

I liked @ian-d-miller's solution for converting the data into a key / value style format, but I kept running into issues with his code.

Here's what worked for me:

function convert_CSV_to_JSON($csv_data){

    // convert csv data to an array
    $data = array_map("str_getcsv", explode("\n", $csv_data));

    // use the first row as column headers
    $columns = $data[0];

    // create array to hold our converted data
    $json = [];

    // iterate through each row in the data
    foreach ($data as $row_index => $row_data) {

        // skip the first row, since it's the headers
        if($row_index === 0) continue;

        // make sure we establish each new row as an array
        $json[$row_index] = [];

        // iterate through each column in the row
        foreach ($row_data as $column_index => $column_value) {

            // get the key for each entry
            $label = $columns[$column_index];

            // add this column's value to this row's index / column's key
            $json[$row_index][$label] = $column_value;       
        }
    }

    // bam
    return $json;
}

Usage:

// as is
$json = convert_CSV_to_JSON($csv);

// encoded
$json = json_encode($json);

Answer 6

The accepted answer uses file_get_contents() to read the entire file as a string in memory, and then explode() it to make it an array.

But it can be made faster, smaller in memory, and more useful:

function ReadCsv($fn)
{
    $lines= file($fn); // read file directly as an array of lines
    array_pop($lines); // you can remove the last empty line (if required)
    $json= json_encode(array_map("str_getcsv", $lines), JSON_NUMERIC_CHECK);
    print_r($json);
}

Nb: I used JSON_NUMERIC_CHECK here to avoid numbers being double quoted into strings. It also reduces the output size and it usually helps javascript on the other side (e.g. to compute or plot the data). Beware of phone numbers though!

Answer 7

Alternate solution that uses similar method as @Whirlwind's solution but returns a more standard JSON result (with named fields for each object/record):

// takes a string of CSV data and returns a JSON representing an array of objects (one object per row)
function convert_csv_to_json($csv_data){
    $flat_array = array_map("str_getcsv", explode("\n", $csv_data));

    // take the first array item to use for the final object's property labels
    $columns = $flat_array[0];

    for ($i=1; $i<count($flat_array)-1; $i++){
        foreach ($columns as $column_index => $column){
            $obj[$i]->$column = $flat_array[$i][$column_index];
        }
    }

    $json = json_encode($obj);
    return $json; // or just return $obj if that's a more useful return value
}

Answer 8

data.csv

Game,Skill
Treasure Hunter,pilipala
Rocket Launcher,bibobibo
Rocket Engine,hehehohoho

To convert with column name, this is how I do it.

csv2json.php

<?php
if (($handle = fopen("data.csv", "r")) !== FALSE) {
    $csvs = [];
    while(! feof($handle)) {
       $csvs[] = fgetcsv($handle);
    }
    $datas = [];
    $column_names = [];
    foreach ($csvs[0] as $single_csv) {
        $column_names[] = $single_csv;
    }
    foreach ($csvs as $key => $csv) {
        if ($key === 0) {
            continue;
        }
        foreach ($column_names as $column_key => $column_name) {
            $datas[$key-1][$column_name] = $csv[$column_key];
        }
    }
    $json = json_encode($datas);
    fclose($handle);
    print_r($json);
}

The output result

[
    {
        "Game": "Treasure Hunter",
        "Skill": "pilipala"
    },
    {
        "Game": "Rocket Launcher",
        "Skill": "bibobibo"
    },
    {
        "Game": "Rocket Engine",
        "Skill": "hehehohoho"
    }
]

Answer 9

If you are converting a dynamic CSV file, you can pass the URL through a parameter (url=http://example.com/some.csv) and it will show you the most up-to-date version:

<?php

// Lets the browser and tools such as Postman know it's JSON
header( "Content-Type: application/json" );

// Get CSV source through the 'url' parameter
if ( isset( $_GET['url'] ) ) {
    $csv = explode( "\n", file_get_contents( $_GET['url'] ) );
    $index = str_getcsv( array_shift( $csv ) );
    $json = array_map(
        function ( $e ) use ( $index ) {
            return array_combine( $index, str_getcsv( $e ) );
        }, $csv
    );
}
else {
    $json = "Please set the path to your CSV by using the '?url=' query string.";
}

// Output JSON
echo json_encode( $json );

Answer 10

You can try this way too.

  <?php

function csvtojson($file,$delimiter)
{
    if (($handle = fopen($file, "r")) === false)
    {
            die("can't open the file.");
    }

    $csv_headers = fgetcsv($handle, 4000, $delimiter);
    $csv_json = array();

    while ($row = fgetcsv($handle, 4000, $delimiter))
    {
            $csv_json[] = array_combine($csv_headers, $row);
    }

    fclose($handle);
    return json_encode($csv_json);
}


$jsonresult = csvtojson("./doc.csv", ",");

echo $jsonresult;

Answer 11

I ran into a similar problem, I ended up using this to recursively convert the data to UTF-8 on an array before encoding to JSON.

function utf8_converter($array)
{
    array_walk_recursive($array, function(&$item, $key){
        if(!mb_detect_encoding($item, 'utf-8', true)){
                $item = utf8_encode($item);
        }
    });

    return $array;
} 

From: http://nazcalabs.com/blog/convert-php-array-to-utf8-recursively/

Answer 12

Try like this:

$file="1_23.csv";
$csv= file_get_contents($file);
$array = array_map("str_getcsv", explode("\n", $csv));
$json = json_encode($array);
print_r($json);